Arin’s ringing phone startled her out of whatever trance Woozi’s gaze had put her under. It also made Woozi pull his hand back and look away.

Arin glanced at the screen. It was Jun.

“Could you answer it please?” Arin asked. Her cheeks were flushed pink and she felt the potion regain its hold over her heart and remind her of the love she had for Jun. She was embarrassed and even guilty for her faltering feelings in that moment.

Woozi nodded and answered the phone: “Hello? Hi Jun… She’s in cuffs right now... We were held up a bit, but we’re just a few minutes away... Okay, cool. I’ll park the car first then come. See you.”

Woozi put the phone down and sighed. “We can talk about this later,” he said. “Jun’s impatient to see you.”

Woozi picked up the gag again, and Arin turned her back to him so he could put it on her. “Remember, make it tight.”

“Okay,” Woozi said, before tying the gag around and tightening it until she could no longer speak.

-

Woozi was driving the last of the way toward Jun with Arin seated in the back, cuffed and gagged. Her wrists were hurting from the tight cuffs, and the dryness of the gag was making her thirsty. She just wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible so she could be free, so she was relieved when he finally parked.

They were in a public parking lot in the middle of the city. People were everywhere. Arin lowered her head, not wanting anyone to see her like this and get the wrong idea.

“He’s in this area. Stay here for a minute, let me just find him and figure out how to do this. I don’t think letting you walk out in public like this is a good idea,” Woozi said.

Arin nodded. Woozi grabbed the binoculars and his phone and left in search of Jun.

In Woozi’s brief absence, a police officer came walking by the car. He stopped when he saw her and narrowed his eyes.

Arin panicked. She froze and hoped he would just ignore her and move on. He didn’t.

He knocked on the window and tried to open the door, but Woozi had locked it.

Arin moved her body so that her hands could unlock the door for the officer, who immediately opened the door.

“Are you in trouble, miss?” the officer asked her with concern.

Arin shook her head. The officer did not take that for an answer. He reached out and untied the gag from around so she could speak.

“I… I’m okay,” she said quickly when she was able to speak, however her voice came across as jittery. The truth was that she was anxious. She considered the possibility that Jun would appear before her very eyes any second with uncovered.

She wished the police officer would just go away and leave her alone.

However, the police officer sensed that something was off and would not do that. Arin’s voice was shaking like she was afraid, so of course he couldn’t believe that she was okay.

“This is all consensual,” Arin repeated.

“Miss, are you being threatened?” the police asked, frowning.

“No, no,” Arin said in a voice more desperate than she intended.

“I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle, miss…”

Arin took a deep breath and did as she was asked. The police officer began to speak into his walky-talky, while holding her arm. Arin’s breath became heavy as the anxiety overcame her body and she began to shake in fear. The officer noticed that too, of course.

She made sure to keep her head down in case Jun appeared.

The police officer continued to ask her questions, and she answered with her head down.

“Who put these on you?”

“A friend.”

“And you say it was consensual?”

“Yes sir.”

“What were you doing?”

Arin hesitated to answer that. She couldn’t tell him the truth, so she decided to put out the most believable lie.

“A kind of roleplay, sir.”

“That’s pretty tight for roleplay, don’t you think?” the officer scoffed as he looked at the cuffs around her wrist.

A few minutes later, Woozi appeared. Arin kept her head down, but she could hear the trepidation in his voice.

“Are you the owner of this vehicle, sir?” the police officer asked.

“It’s a friend’s vehicle,” Woozi answered. “But I am driving it.”

“Why was the girl in handcuffs?” the police officer asked.

Woozi hesitated. “It was just… um… for fun,” he lied.

“I see. Do you have the keys to the cuffs?”

“Uh yes, right here,” Woozi reached into his pocket and gave the keys to the officer, who freed her hands.

“I’m going to need to ask both of you to follow me. I believe you, but you have to understand that we need to take precautionary measures. After we take down your IDs, you’ll be free to go.”

Arin was still shaking at this point, even though she tried so hard to stop her body from doing it. It was only making the officer more suspicious and making Woozi look bad.

This time, the source of her anxiety was the fact she did not have an ID. It had been four years since she had one. On official records, she was a missing person, presumed dead. She began to wonder if the officers knew the faces of all the missing people and would recognize her, then take her back to her extended family and friends.

The overthinking spiralled out of control. Her breath became heavy as the panic took over her chest. She wanted to pick the skin around her nails, but she was wearing the gloves. All she could do was apply pressure to her fingers and try her hardest to look normal.

“I don’t have my ID on me,” Arin managed to say.

“Then I’m going to have to ask you to call someone to bring it in,” the police officer said. “Follow me.”

-

“Relax,” Woozi said to her as they followed the police officer, noticing her trepidation. “We’ll be okay.”

It was not just being worried about her ID that made her this anxious, but it was also being in public among so many people. After being a recluse for so long, it was overwhelming to suddenly be out in the world, among crowds, talking to police officers. The prospect of learning someone’s name out in public like this was another worry to add to the never-ending list of reasons Arin was anxious.

The police station offered brief respite from the crowds in the street. They were seated in front of an officer’s desk and asked for any form of identification.

Woozi reached into his pocket and pulled out an ID himself. Arin realized then that it was Jun’s ID, not his own. However, the police did not look twice at it, and just logged the details into their records, and returned it.

Arin was given the police phone to make a phone call, and Jun was the only one she could think to call.

It appeared that Jun was aware of their predicament without Arin even having to say anything. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Someone’s on it. They’re on their way with an ID as we speak.”

Some woman from MRS, the name of whom she did not know, eventually showed up with an ID of a random girl named Yubin, who resembled Arin. The police also logged it without looking twice, and they were free to go.

It was an enormous relief to finally be free. Arin soon stopped trembling and the anxiety subsided; instead, Arin felt so grateful that she was not alone anymore.

She realized that she did not only have herself to depend on. Jun had her back; actually, all of MRS had her back. MRS came rushing to the police station when she was in trouble, and managed to help her escape something that could have been a disaster for her. They knew to send someone Arin did not know by name, accommodating the restrictions of her curse. They were like… a new kind of family, a replacement to what her mother had been in her early life, and Hyojung in her later one.

At that moment, Arin realized that she no longer distrusted them. She no longer had any qualms about their intentions. She trusted them and never wanted to lose them like she lost her mother and Hyojung.

-

Apparently, Jun had lost the path of the thread, as he was too distracted trying to get Woozi and Arin out of trouble. Now, he had to start over from the point of the gravesite, so they decided to postpone the search for another day.

Arin and Woozi silently walked back to where the car was parked after their encounter with the police. When they finally got into the car, Woozi let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry,” Arin said to him. “It’s my fault you have to start over…”

“Oh god, no, don’t apologize. It was not your fault. It was mine for parking in the wrong spot.”

Arin lowered her head. She still felt guilty and responsible for the failure of the mission.

“That was close, wasn’t it?” he said.

Arin nodded.

“Jun really came through for us. Without him, we’d have been toast,” Woozi said. He paused, then stifled a laugh.

“What’s funny?”

“The cops, they…” Woozi began to laugh harder. “They thought the cuffs and the gag were…” he continued to laugh. “Oh god...” he covered his face and shook his head, embarrassed.

Arin liked seeing him like that. His laughs were contagious, and it made her laugh too.

“One of the police guys winked at me!” Woozi said. “I was mortified!”

As she watched him laugh, he gradually became a different person to her, a person that Arin wanted to stay with for a very long time. Something shifted inside of her, something big, something that she didn’t quite understand in the moment.

She heard her phone ring and looked at the name on her screen: Jun.

Because of all the delays, it had been nearly 16 hours since Arin had taken the potion with Jun. And now, thoughts of Jun no longer filled her with the same kind of delight they had just a few hours ago.

Her face darkened as she realized what had happened: the effects of the potion had worn off for the first time in weeks. She was no longer in love with Jun.